


on my way amongst the stars

by rainbowagnes



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Bakery and Coffee Shop, Christmas Fluff, F/M, High School, Modern AU, i can't believe i actually wrote a coffee shop au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2018-12-22 01:02:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11956437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbowagnes/pseuds/rainbowagnes
Summary: A collection of Star Wars of all varieties. Contact me is you want anything written!1. Coffee Shop AU (Rebelcaptain)2. German Christmas Market AU (Finnrey)3. Road Trip AU (Finnrey)4. "Elementary" Modern Detectives AU (Finnrey)5. Finnrey High School Pool Party AU6. Drabble about Cassian's mom I cried while writing





	1. Jim + Cassie Anne

**Author's Note:**

> Title shamelessly taken from the poem "The Old Astronomer" by Sarah Williams, truly one of the great masterpieces of the English language.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by the lovely @rosestico on tumblr, who asked for "rebelcaptain + you took my coffee au." THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR LEAVING ME A PROMPT, particularly as we're more recent mutuals. 
> 
> I've also now read like 5 articles about why Fair Trade coffee doesn't actually do much to help coffee farmers so this was a very educational experience.

"Hey. Mister. Coffee shop bloke. Jackets!" 

In surprise, Cassian turns to see a woman running down the block towards him. She's out of breath and her blue scarf billows behind her like a cloud, and Cassian has the dawning feeling he recognizes her from somewhere. 

"Me?" 

"Yeah, you." She reaches him with a huff. Her nose is rather adorably pink from the chilly air and the wind has pulled chunks of her chestnut hair free. "They mixed up our coffee orders at The Rebrewllion." 

So that's where he's seen her before. Waiting in line at The Rebrewllion coffee shop, where Cassian's made it a morning ritual to pick up a cup and a sweet roll before his long day as a public defender. He pays a bit of a premium for it, but it's better to support a local business than dish out for one of these corporate megamonsters, and he has first hand experience with the importance of ethically sourced coffee as well. 

He examines the writing on the side of the cup. 

"Are you Jim?" 

"Jyn, actually. Like the liquor or the gold or the supernatural Islamic creatures. Not like Jim." She purses her lips awkwardly for a second and then adds: "Are you Cassie-Anne?" 

"Cassian. Cassian Andor. Like the patron saint of Mexico City who was such a bad teacher his students stabbed him to death with their pens." 

"Oh, well, now that's a legacy." 

She holds out her cup to swap, and she takes it, their gloved fingers brushing. 

"You know you take your coffee disgustingly sweet, right?" 

"Yeah, I know. My mother's influence." He examines the top of the cup and notices a bright pink smear. "You know you got lipstick all over this?" 

"Sorry." She winces. "Not much that can be done now, is there? I think I have some disinfectant wipes in my pocket if-" 

He waves a hand dismissively. "On the contrary, I think the only reasonable course of action would be for the two of us to go back to The Rebrewllion for a second cup." 


	2. Frohe Weihnachten!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn's working at his gingerbread stall in the Christmas market when a cute girl shows up with an . . .. unusual request.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Partially inspired by one of @jakkus-storytellers 's Finnrey AU mood boards, all of which are seriously amazing!
> 
> (Disclaimer: I know v. little about Germany/German Christmas markets, I’ve just been absolutely enchanted by the pictures of them and watered down UK ones, and I wanted to write something cute a fluffy and with that glowy holiday magic for Finnrey.)
> 
> I know this is already a freestanding Finnrey au, so it might be bad manners to bring it through the feed again, but I wanted to compile all my Star Wars dribbles in one place. In future, I won't publish my SW one-shots under 1,000 words as freestanding pieces, and I don't want to delete the current ones- "Frohe Weihnachten!" and "When We Get There" due to all the lovely comments. Thank you for bearing with me.

It was towards the end of Finn’s shift at the lebkucken stall when a very pretty girl came along.

“You can do personalised messages, right? On the lebkuchenherzen?”

Finn nodded. They always wrote out some standard phrases- Ich Liebe Dich, Happy X-Mas for the English tourists- on the gingerbread hearts, but almost all the names were personalised so that he could keep the gingerbread supply fresh.

“Of course! Any special spellings or messages?”

“Uhmmm.” He could see the girl’s cheeks turn red as she glanced around the bustling Christmas market. “Maybe I could write it down?”

He pulled a pen out of his pocket helpfully and watched her scrawl something on a receipt. She handed the receipt over to him.

For a second, Finn thought he had misread it.

FUCK YOU/OFF, KYLO. -REY.

“I can certainly put this on a heart for you, but it’s gonna have to be one of the big ones. Six euros alright?”

She nodded. “It was a twenty euro family Secret Santa, so that’s in the range.”

Finn dug a heart from the bottom of the pile. It was a bit of a dud, stale and with burnt edges and pulverised icing snowflakes. Perfect.

“I get the feeling you don’t like this guy much.” He squinted at the receipt. “Kyle?”

“Kylo. He changed it at Uni.”

“Kylo. Duly Noted.”

In his neatest, most politely fuck-you script, Finn iced Rey’s message onto the heart. He tried not to look to much at the girl. She was very cute, in an elfin sort of way, with slightly pointed ears and big brown eyes and a very poofy scarf. And she was certainly staring back at him.

He tried not to overthink it.

“There. It’s going to take around twenty minutes or so to dry, so you could come back later to pick it up, or you could . . .” He lets the sentence trail off.

“Or I could what?”

“Or I’m about to take a break in my shift, and we could go get a cup of eierlikor from the stall around the corner. Kanata’s is the best in Berlin.”

“Oh.” Rey froze for a second. Around them, snow had started to fall, dusting the top of her hat with a fine white powder. “I’d like that very much.” She held out her hand. “My name’s Rey, but I guess you already knew that. Rey Himmelslaeufer.”

“Finn Abayomi.” He shook her mittened hand. “Enchanting to meet you.”

It was enchanting. Rey’s stroke of luck in finding the perfect Christmas present for her most hated cousin, the soft flurries of snow, the golden light of the market, the man behind the lebkuchen counter- possibly, no definitely the most handsome man Rey had ever met- the delicious cups of eierlikor, and then the flagons of beer and curry wurst as they talked long into the night, and then the plans to meet up the next day for doner kebab and ice skating- well, it was all certainly shaping up the be the best Christmas Rey had ever had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My computer can not easily type a with the umlauts, as should be the case in Himmelslaufer. 
> 
> Thoughts? Requests? Angry comments at my brutal butchering of the German language?


	3. Taki's and Wispa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompts fill for @lehdenlaulu: ♗: One falling asleep with their head in the other's lap.
> 
> Finn and Rey go on a roadtrip.

He wakes up with a start, disoriented from the feeling of motion and the noxious scents of diesel and wet winter coats, his head foggy with the feeling of having slept very deeply for a very long time.

“Ey, sleeping beauty. Go back to sleep. Got a few more hours to go.”

Rey’s voice, comforting through the fog, pulling to him like a beacon. Home to a man that’s been adrift for a long time.

Which is when he realises the position he’s in.  
He rights himself immediately, embarrassed, but Rey only laughs, and it makes something deep in his stomach flop, because falling asleep in their lap is not something platonic friends do. And that's what they are, aren't they? Two lost foster kids who've made a pact to help each other track down their families.

Two foster kids who've spent hours sifting through fading public records, immigration manifests, the birth and marriage records of churches and synagogues. Two foster kids whose meetings have a tendency to last long into nights spent eating takeaway pirogies and binge watching GBBO. Two foster kids who've built the strongest friendship either of them has ever had, a friendship that feels like it's crossed into something with a stronger, more electric flavour, though both are too afraid of what might be lost to come out and say it.

Here's what Rey's found: Her birth name was Kira. This isn't a surprise- it's been there are along, buried in the back of her subconscious. Kira. Kira. Kira. "Rey" was the name she chose for herself off of a motorcycle helmet when she was barely old enough to read.

Here's what Finn's found: a slim manilla folder. A slim manilla folder with his picture in it, his baby picture, that makes him immediately recoil again at the enormity of what has been taken from it. A name- Sam Abayomi. Sam Abayomi? Does he feel like Sam Abayomi?

No names of parents. But, scribbled with a red pen onto the back, an address.

Finn rubs his eyes and looks out at the farmland stretching out beyond the scratched window. Everything seems sepia toned, like they're people living out an old photograph.

Rey rustles through her backpack. "You want snacks? I have, uh, Wispa, lime and chili Taki's, one of those Cadbury's bars with the pop rocks and stuff in it-"

Finn silently chooses the latter item and unwraps, breaking it and handing half to Rey. They eat it watching the patchwork of abandoned mini-marts, billboards, seemingly identical tiny towns and billboards.

"You ready?" Rey finally asks.

Yes, ready. So ready. He's been ready for the last ten years.

He's not ready at all.

So he shakes his head, and feels Rey's chocolate-smudged hand snake up around his. A concrete tether and a promise of companionship.

"You can go back to sleep if you want. I'll wake you up when we get there."

"Look, Rey, I'm so sorry for falling asleep in your lap ear-"

"It's fine."

"No, I-"

"It's fine," she cuts through again, and Finn sees that the tops of her ears are as pink as strawberries. "If you want to go back to sleep, do. It doesn't bother me."

"Okay," he says slowly, making a concerted effort to lean back on the tatty cushion of the bus seat rather than her. He feels her thumb reach around and draw slow circles on the back of his hand. A tether and a promise. "Just wake me up when we get there." The road stretches on behind and in front of him, and in this moment, tired is what Finn feels. Weary. Is he ready to be Sam Abayomi? He has an hour and a half to become Sam Abayomi. No, he has an hour and a half to contemplate what being Sam Abayomi might mean. But he doesn't want to think about that right now. What he wants to do is go back to sleep.

"When we get there," she repeats, and turns her eyes back to the road and her thoughts back to the man beside her.


	5. Bee Mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt from the awesome @leopoldjamesfitz, who asked for Finnrey + roommates. I figured I had to go with the most Iconic set of room mates of all time.
> 
> HAPPY VALENTINES DAY EVERYONE!!!
> 
> Based mostly off of Elementary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It annoys be more than words can say that the species names are not italicised. If anyone knows how to italicise things on AO3- PLEASE TELL ME!!!!

He finds her where he normally does when she disappears randomly at an off hour: on the roof, among her bees. Black puffer vest and red fair isle sweater, chunks of hair whipping around her face in the weak morning light and ice-touched air. As always with her, a kind of a chaotic peace, or a peaceful chaos. 

When she sees him, her eyes widen for a moment, but she doesn’t startle, not around the bees. (They smell fear, she told him the first time he found her up here, back in his days of official sober companionship, where he wasn’t sure if she was joking or not.) He holds up his steaming cup of coffee and sits down on the overturned crate next to her, careful to check first for stray bees or pools of honey. 

He blows on his coffee- too hot still to drink, but the steam condenses damply around his lips. Beyond the roof of the brownstone, beyond Brooklyn, Manhattan rises, the entire cityscape pollution smudged and gold tinged. The roaring symphony of democracy and greed, virtue and corruption, oppression and liberation, but mainly the people, people caught between the old world and the new, people trying to live out their daily lives, coming and going and buzzing along like the bees in Rey’s hives. He loves this city. He abhors it for the things that happen within. It’s etched in his soul, now, and he could never go back. 

It’s a part of her now, too. 

She gratefully accepts the mug of tea he holds out to her, and they sit in companionable silence for a while, the movements of the various bees, the kinds of bees, meaning all sorts of things to Rey, though to him just a blur of yellow from which he tries not to get stung. 

“I don’t believe I’ve every properly thanked you enough.” It’s always been a puzzle to her, the English language, that when you actually need to use them the phrases I’m Sorry and Thank You are not ever nearly enough.

“You don’t need to. He came for both of us.” 

“Yes, but you took Ren down.” 

Kylo Ren. Benjamin Solo. The Man. One and the same, some kind of infernal trinity, and it still makes her hands tremble to think of it. Only Benjamin Solo had never actually existed, and that’s what hurts the deepest. 

“I’ve made a decision.” He studies the cracks in the mug, his fingernails, the stitching on his cuffs, all of which have suddenly become intently interesting. 

She nods. Salvation or ultimatum. One or the other. Since when has someone else choice mattered so very much to her? 

“I want to stay. With you. Solving crimes. Roommates.” 

She hears it, and immediately it’s relief, celebration. Joy, even. 

“Room mates. The brownstone was empty without you.” 

She holds out her hand, and he shakes it, a proper business deal. 

“I look forward to the continuation of our partnership.” 

“No need to be so formal, Doctor.”She smiles, laughs, bites her lip, and he has to smile and laugh too, because this is them, the doctor and the detective, the lost and the found, one Finn, one Rey, the way it was always meant to be. “I’ve changed. For the better.” 

He nods. He’s seen it, he know just how much. 

“And the thing that is different about me, empirically speaking, is you.” 

“It was my j-” 

“Not as a sober companion. As a friend.” 

A friend. Such a simple word. A child’s word, a playground word. Rey remembers, early in her studies of forensic linguistics, coming across the notion that the English vocabulary evolved contains both Anglo-Saxon and Old French, with an official, “proper,” French word for something, and an ordinary, vernacular Anglo-Saxon word for it as well. Enquire, ask. Pensive, thinking. Verdant, green. Venison, dear. 

Acquaintance, friend. 

In her life, Rey has had many acquaintances, and very, very few friends. 

She digs up a stack of honey- streaked letters and hands it to Finn, along with a small wooden box, a carefully mounted dried bee with outstretched wings perched inside, under glass, like a jewel. 

“Say hello to Euglassia finona.” 

It takes a second for him to process. 

“This is a bee-” 

“-a species of bee-” 

“-named after me?” 

She’s smiling so hard she can barely answer. And he doesn’t really know how to answer himself. 

“Generations of melittology students will have to study the fascinating and unusual mating habits of Euglassia fin-” 

He hugs her before she can finish off with the fascinating and unusual mating habits of Euglassia finona. Or that technically, Euglassia finona should be impossible, from the apiological standpoint, the result of Osmia avosetta from Rey’s rooftop hives mating with another kind of bee, even though Osmia avosetta is it’s own species. 

But she doesn’t tell him all that. Because sometimes impossible things are meant to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Send in all your prompts to @ghostborscht !!!!
> 
> I have such CONFUSED feelings about this, because while Elementary's Watson and Holmes are possibly my favourite representation of love and friendship on TV, I do NOT ship them romantically, like I do Finnrey, but on the other hand, I really love this AU and might expand upon it more in future. 
> 
> And also, like, Crylo Ren isn't even CLOSE to Moriarty's level of being a villain. Facts only. But I had to, you know, make things work for the au.


	10. Makin' a Splash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> based on a prompt from @lehdenlaulu: "ways to say I love you: 'over your shoulder' "  
> I didn't realise that I didn't actually write the words "over your shoulder" until I'd actually finished writing this mess, just like. . . . used the vague idea. 
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rey is autistic because I am and I love projecting. (Actually she's autistic in everything.)

Usually, Rey loves pool games. 

Firstly, because she loves water, and secondly, because she loves competition. Marco Polo, pool volleyball, biggest and smallest splash competitions on the diving board … she is determined to make it through to graduation from P. A. Naberrie High School without defeat. 

And nothing shall stand in her way. 

Certainly not boys. 

Certainly not very cute boys. 

Certainly not the boy who sits a row in front of her in AP Calc and always has the right answers, two or three steps faster than the teacher can explain them. 

Certainly not the boy with the black plastic frames and the messenger bag and the button down shirts, who is, miraculously, the same boy who works out after school in tanks that show his very nice biceps. 

But here that boy is, wearing swim trunks and a teeshirt that clings slightly to his damp skin, and Rey has to consider the fact that fate just really doesn’t like her. 

“I’ll be your partner.” 

“What?” 

Rey would like to clarify, for posterity, that she is not boy crazy. Rey is human, and the sight of Finn Abayomi running a hand through his close-cropped, pool-wet hair would be enough to make 90% of the population within a reasonable age forget the first part of what he said.

“I’ll be your partner for the chicken fight. You were looking for one?’ 

Ohhhh. Right. She most definitely was. 

“Thanks,” she says, and tries to figure out more to say, because the thing is, it’s not always easy for Rey to find chicken fight partners. Or study partners. Or people to do things with her, and she’s mainly stopped asking to cut back the hurt. 

“No problem. I mean, we survived Rook’s AP physics together. How much harder can this be?” 

Finn and Rey’s eyes flit to the pool, where Snap and Poe are already embroiled in some pre-fight ritual that involves sloshing massive quantities of water around and singing We Are The Champions. 

Finn and Rey shake on their partnership, a bolt of electric already shooting up her arm. 

And then he takes his shirt off. 

Rey saw him swimming shirtless earlier, but it’s a whole ‘nother thing when he grabs her hand and drags her into the pool, shirtless, and then when he crouches in the shallow water so she can loop her legs around his shoulders. Like woah. This is a lot of skin. This is a lot of physical contact with a boy that she may or may not have been spending a lot of time thinking about. 

Finn lifts her out of the water. He’s strong, sturdy, a reliable mainstay on the school’s judo and outrigger paddling teams. He will not let her fall. 

Poe dramatically flicks the water off his arms. 

“Ready to lose?” 

“In YOUR DREAMS, DAMERON.” 

Jessica blows the whistle to start the match, and the battle begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm studying for a massive round of exams rn, but feel free to leave me prompts! Just might take a bit for those to be answered.


	11. and back to and fro in my dreams I'll go (and I'll kneel and pray, for you)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's nothing canonically stating Cassian's mother is dead, and I have a TON of feelings if she's still alive. 
> 
> Title from "The Foggy Dew," the Irish ballad that makes me cry every time I listen to it.
> 
> Happy Rogue One Week (I think???) y'all

he comes home ever six months or so. the house feels empty, but it always has, ever since the day his father didn’t come home ( _a_ _little light protesting_ , he says, _leave the dinner warm_ ) and there’s his sister Lupe, off running rifles, and his sister Niambh, still not much more than a teenager, with fingers clever enough to put those weapons together blindfolded

and there’s a woman who’s seen more ghosts in her life than anyone should, who gets up in the morning and does her duty because there’s bloody well nothing else to do aside from get a move on with things, another mission another weapons run, though she’s older now, mainly just organises things, keeps tabs on the stock and guards it, if necessary, with a very quick hand

but every half year or so, her son come home, every time with a few more ghosts in his eyes and unspeakable things in his heart, every time a little more like his father, like Cezar was,

and every time she puts the kettle on and makes a cup of tea and holds him while he cries

and then one day, it’s a holo and not a son that’s sent home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not that Star Wars really needs more white women, but I figured that if Diego's mixed than Cassian probably is too, so definitely picturing Cassian's mom as like, a Space!Irish lady, probably with a family background in the IRA in a real world au. (This is not so I can project my own mixed Irish girl feelings, oh no.)  
> ANYWAY! I have feelings about Cassian's parents, some nice rebels who probably met at like space art uni but who were always rebels, when imperial stuff started going down they took a look at their three young children and made a very hard choice. (there was never any choice at all)

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave me prompts either as a comment or a question on my tumblr (@rainbowagnes) I don't do NSFW but I do love aus or any kind!
> 
> Also accepting Finnrey, Finnpoe, Mattelektra, Hanlando, and Bellarke. Similar ships of the type= just ask!


End file.
